Child Protection Guidance 2021

Part 4: Specific support needs and concerns 133 National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland 2021 Version 1.0 September 2021 4.6 Analysis. Individual practitioners may have little influence on structural inequalities. However, in each situation, multi-agency planning to protect children should seek to maximise income and access appropriate resources for the family in order to address the distinctive context and relevance of deprivation. In this process, the My World Triangle prompts practical consideration of material barriers to wellbeing for each child. This should also prompt consideration of those instances when material affluence can mask emotional neglect and abuse (Bernard 2019). 4.7 Strategic direction. Without further systematic intervention, relative child poverty is likely to continue to rise in Scotland, from 23% in 2016-17 to 27% in 2023-24 (De Agostini/ Scottish Parliament, 2019) or as high as 29% (Resolution Foundation, 2019). There is a need to ensure connection between local poverty analysis and planning with national strategy and policy (McKendrick, 2018). The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 creates national definitions and targets to be met in relation to reducing child poverty by 1 April 2030. Local authorities have duties under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 and the broader social policy framework of the Scottish Government, to improve the health and wellbeing of children living in poverty. Actions to prevent and mitigate child poverty at the local level are likely to have both a direct and indirect impact on child wellbeing, safety and protection. The Independent Care Review has stressed that: “There must be significant, on-going and persistent commitment to ending poverty and mitigating its impacts for Scotland’s children, families and communities.” Resources and References – Poverty When services find it hard to engage 4.8 Terms. ‘Resistance’ and ‘disguised compliance’, usually meaning disguised non- compliance or non-effective compliance, are terms sometimes used when services find it hard to engage with families. Such terms imply that the location of responsibility for this block lies with children and families. 4.9 ‘Non-engagement’ covers a spectrum of failures that are all a product of interaction. The tone of engagement and painful previous experience of services may both play a part. 4.10 Inclusive protection and support of children also involves engaging with the risks and strengths presented by fathers and/or the men that are most significant to the child’s safety and wellbeing. This component of protection and support is sometimes absent. 4.11 Non-engagement on the part of service users may take the form of aggression, manipulation, concealment, superficiality, blaming and ‘splitting’ professionals, inaction or selective action. Children who experience frequent changes of address within such a pattern may be at increased risk. 4.12 Effective child protection is a constant search for ‘meeting points’. This is likely to depend on appreciation of the feelings and context of avoidant or oppositional communications. These might include fear, distrust, exhaustion, shock, isolation, intoxication, anxiety, depression, stigma, denial, blame, shame, deflection, trauma, attachment history, incapacity or confusion. Some will have had traumatic experience of being coerced and controlled. Others may already have had a child removed.